


Stars in the Dark

by Androids_in_Metropolis



Category: Palo Alto (2013)
Genre: Angst, Cute, F/M, Fluff, Mental Health Issues, Schizophrenia, finding yoursel, self love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5434694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Androids_in_Metropolis/pseuds/Androids_in_Metropolis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily doesn't believe in anything, but she used to. Fred taught her how nothing was real. Teddy teaches her how real everything is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> A tumblr prompt: Please write FredxEmily.

Emily didn’t believe in God. She didn’t believe in fate, or fortune. She didn’t believe in anything. Fred had taught her not to believe in anything, because he believed in everything. He used to tell her about the ghosts that talked to him sometimes, how their voices would bounce around in his head until he had to do something...anything to shut them up. Usually that was something stupid, and usually she was dragged into it somehow. 

She had believed in ghosts back then. She had believed everything Fred had told her back then. 

Since then she’d learned; She’d gotten older, wiser, stronger...she’d learned not to trust everyone who told you that you could trust them. Fred had taught her that. Fred had taught her a lot of things. 

She still remembered the day she’d learned that the ghosts weren’t ghosts at all; She had been with Fred in the hospital after the accident (He’d driven into a wall after going the wrong way down a one way street). The doctors had done brain scans, there had been therapists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, and tests. He was all bound up, and he told them about the voices he’d heard. The voices said he’d be better if he drove into the wall. The voices still said that. He asked if they were right. 

Later the doctor had taken Emily aside and asked her if Fred was under a lot of stress lately, if he was always like this, and if not how long had he been like this. Emily had said Fred was always like that, and that he was always under a lot of stress. She explained that Fred was gay, and that she was his girlfriend, and that she didn’t know what to do. She told him about other things the voices had told Fred to do. She told him about the time Fred went missing and they found him half drown under a bridge in nothing but a pair of striped pajama pants. 

The doctor told her he thought it would be best for them to go their separate ways. He implied that Fred needed help and that she wasn’t the person to give it. He told her he thought Fred schizophrenia. Emily told him she didn’t believe in ghosts. She didn’t believe in anything any more. 

The doctor sent her home after that. She didn’t see Fred again until he came back to school a month later. He was different. They didn’t talk any more. He and Teddy didn’t talk either. 

She tried to make friends after she didn’t believe in anything, but Emily wasn’t the kind of person people liked. She wasn’t loud, she didn’t like parties. She didn’t drink any more, and she didn’t know anybody but the people no one wanted to know; Fred, April, Teddy, the janitor-Mr. Bugsby. 

Teddy was different to her after that as well; He sometimes came to her house, but they didn’t talk much. They’d sit outside, a pitcher of too sweet easy-mix lemonade between them. They never drank it; Emily watched as flies were attracted by the sugar, and slowly drown in the pale yellow liquid. 

“Do you miss Fred?” Teddy once asked, blurting the words out as if by accident. He looked surprised that he had said them at all. He looked like he was in physical pain...Emily wanted to take his pain from him, pull it out of his body and watch it dance. 

“No, sometimes,” Emily replied, indecisively. Truth be told, she didn’t know if she missed Fred. She missed his company...his attention, but she didn't miss his trouble, or his touch. She didn’t miss his words; His scary thoughts that he would voice aloud and whisper into the dark as they did it. She didn’t like to think about that. “Do you?” she asked slowly, not sure of the shaky ground they were standing on. 

“Yes, and no; I don’t know,” Teddy replied, shrugging his shoulders, voicing Emily’s own thoughts. “I guess so. But not all of him, just the part that I was friends with…”

\---------------------------

Emily liked to sit with Teddy. He started to talk more, tell her things. They started by talking about Fred, but soon they talked about other things too; Emily told her about Wiccan and the celebrations she went to sometimes. Teddy told her about his dreams. Emily said she didn’t think she had any. 

Teddy kissed her once. He asked her permission, he stopped, he pulled away. They looked at each other for a while...They were both waiting, waiting, waiting...Emily was waiting for him to leave. Of course, this must have been what he wanted all along. Of course he didn’t really want to talk to her. She was hurt. 

Teddy was waiting to see what would happen. He had liked the kiss. He liked Emily. He started to speak again, a little faster now, happy to talk. Happy to still be sitting at Emily’s feet, next to a lemonade jug filled with flies. 

Emily was surprised when Teddy stayed. She didn’t mind. She liked that he stayed, and didn’t try to kiss her again. She was happy with it. She liked the idea that maybe he liked her for her, and the kiss was just that; A kiss. A kiss between people who like each other because they liked each other, and not just because they needed somebody. 

Teddy chattered until it got dark, smiling as he left Emily, squeezing her hard softly as he got to his feet and invited himself out. 

“See you tomorrow,” he called over his shoulder as the gate swung closed behind him. 

Emily called good bye to his back, smiling as he turned and waved. 

That night she didn’t think about Fred for the first time in months. That night she thought about herself, and about Teddy. She stood naked in front of her mirror, for the first time seeing who she really could be underneath all the dirt she had collected as she let herself get stepped on by anyone who cared to. 

“You’re beautiful,” she said to her reflection, her voice laced with complete and utter surprise. She didn’t sleep in clothes that night, letting the air dance over her through her open window. It was strange to fill something other than scratchy fabric or dirty hands move across her. It was a new sensation and she liked it. 

\-----------------------

Teddy came back the next day, and the next, and the next and he never asked for anything. He never forced anything from her, never pushed her away. 

Emily grew comfortable. She let him talk. Sometimes she would kiss him. She always made the first move now. Teddy liked that about Emily, this, new Emily...old Emily. This must have been what Emily was like before people beat her down. 

“You’re amazing,” Teddy whispered, into Emily’s ear one night, his arm wrapped around her as they sat on his back porch watching the sky and it grew dark.

“We’re all amazing,” Emily replied, smiling softly as she kissed Teddy on the cheek, laying her head on his shoulder. 

She didn’t think about Fred any more. He had new friends now...got into new trouble with new faces. Teddy didn’t think about Fred any more either. He wasn’t in his circle any more, gravitating around his strangeness. He had a strange pull...pulling all the unhappy people towards him, being the ruler of a depressed and self-conscious buble. 

They watched the sunset, the clouds growing pink and blue and yellow and purple and slowly, slowly the stars appeared. Emily thought they were like those stars...ever so slowly making their shining selves known. 

She buried her face in Teddy’s shoulder as she laughed at the cheesiness of the thought, laughing for no reason at all, laughing because Teddy was there, and he was laughing too and he didn’t know why either...

“I love you,” Teddy whispered, telling Emily the words she had been forced to say so many times. 

“I love you too,” Emily giggled, meaning it for the first time.


End file.
